Please Kill Me - Chapter 162
Yekaterina swiftly turned her head to glare at Yuri, who was pretending to be occupied several steps behind Leonid.
“Didn’t you say you would understand my choices?”
But Yuri merely averted his gaze and replied without elaboration.
At that moment, Yekaterina had no choice but to acknowledge that everything was a trap.
‘The only exit is that door over there.’
Since the door was behind Yuri and Leonid, she found herself unable to escape.
No matter how hard she tried to think, she couldn’t come up with a sharp solution to the situation.
As she scanned the room with her eyes, she noticed Leonid’s brow furrowing ominously.
“Instead of thinking about running away, why not look my way, Yekaterina? Given that it’s been a while, it seems you didn’t want to see me after all.”
His additional comment made Yekaterina squeeze her eyes shut and then open them again.
There truly was no place left to flee.
“….Why did you come here?”
“It’s nothing serious. Just paying off a debt. I can’t live with a debt hanging over me.”
As Leonid spoke, he casually pulled something from his pocket.
It was a folding dagger.
Though it wasn’t large, it was sufficient for piercing someone’s heart or throat.
For Yekaterina, who always carried a dagger, this was an object she was closely familiar with.
Yet, seeing the dagger triggered an instinctual sense that something was terribly wrong.
Leonid’s indifferent voice seemed to fan the flames of her anxiety.
“I was prepared to die that day on the terrace. Didn’t you feel it?”
Had Leonid had even the slightest will to survive, he would have killed the woman who mimicked Yekaterina and somehow crawled out beyond the terrace.
But Leonid had remained at the innermost railing of the terrace.
That was a place no one trying to survive would go to.
Faced with this undeniable truth, Yekaterina slowly closed her eyes and then opened them again.
‘I had hoped it wouldn’t be true.’
Yekaterina hoped that Leonid hadn’t truly been leaning against the railing for such a reason. The Leonid she knew would never choose death of his own accord.
“….Why is that? You valued your life. You told me not to die as well.”
“Yes. I told you not to die. But when I found myself in that position, I understood.”
He spoke of a feeling where everything seemed meaningless and empty.
Even without deep depression or living through tear-stained days like a madman, it was still possible to want to die.
“Yekaterina, I can finally understand you now.”
Leonid’s words made Yekaterina’s heart plummet.
His statement felt like a nail driven in.
A nail confirming that Leonid genuinely wished for his own death.
“I truly thought about dying. It was you who saved me without my consent. You made me a debtor, hiding that fact while running away.”
What a cruel thing to turn someone into a debtor. Leonid added that with a hint of jest as the dagger spun on his palm.
The handle, which originally belonged in his hand, was now in Yekaterina’s grasp, and the blade, once aimed at her, was turned toward him.
He stepped closer to Yekaterina, taking her hand, and placed the dagger into her grip.
“You’re the one who can erase the debt, so take it.”
The callousness with which he withdrew his hand was striking.
In that brief moment, Yekaterina found herself holding the dagger. Why was that? It wasn’t out of coercion, yet she couldn’t avoid the hand that offered her the weapon.
Perhaps it was because she realized she could no longer escape.
Her hand trembled as she held the dagger.
She hadn’t shaken when she took her first life. She had always believed that wielding a weapon while trembling could only lead to injuring herself, and such foolishness was far from her.
Yet now, she found herself unable to stop her hands from shaking.
It was a vague fear, an overwhelming terror.
Clang!
The dagger finally slipped from Yekaterina’s trembling hands.
In reality, it looked as if she was throwing it away.
Yekaterina’s gaze, having released the dagger, slowly met Leonid’s eyes.
“I… can’t do it.”
Leonid’s eyes narrowed, but there was no surprise in his expression. It was as if he had expected Yekaterina to make such a choice.
With a look that suggested a hint of exasperation, Leonid brushed his hair back and spoke.
“Why? It’s what you do best. You know exactly where to stab to ensure a painless death.”
He was right. Yekaterina could confidently say that she knew more about death than anyone else.
Wielding a blade wasn’t a difficult task for her. She had grown weary of killing in Offenbach every single day.
But to kill Leonid?
The thought twisted her face, making her look as if she might cry.
“How could I…?”
How could I kill you?
The words tumbled out, desperate and pleading, like grains of sand slipping through her fingers.
“How could I…?”
